Writing was invented in the ancient Near East in order to record business activities, The cuneiform writing was probably invented by the Sumerians but was subsequently adapted for writing in the Akkadian language, of which Babylonian and Assyrian are dialects.

In Iranian Plateau the pictographic texts found at Susa, known as proto Elamite, appear in an archaeological level which shows marked differences from previous level, suggesting the arrival of a new cultural group, and since these proto-Elamite texts have now been found as far east as Sistan on the border of Afghanistan, it may be that the script was invented on the Iranian plateau.